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Hillard 

The  Relation  of  the  Poet  to 
Kis  Age 


'A   "N  'asnsojAg    ■ 


;/''7 


/?.^ 


THE    RELATION 


OF 


THE  POET  TO  HIS  AGE. 


A   DISCOURSE    DELIVERED    BEFORE    THE 


PHI  BETA   KAPPA    SOCIETY 


OF  HARVARD  UNIVERSITY, 


ON   THURSDAY,   AUGUST   24,    1813. 


BY  GEORGE  S.  IIILLARD. 


SECOND    EDITION. 


BOSTON 


CHARLES   C.  LITTLE  AND  JAMES  BROWN. 

1813. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1843, 

By  Charles  C.  Little  and  James  Bbown, 

iu  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


BOSTON  : 

PRINTED    BY    FREEMAN    AND    BOLLES, 

WASHINGTON   STREET. 


DISCOUHSE. 


Most  persons  have  probably  amused  themselves 
with  unprofitable  speculations  upon  the  relative 
rank  to  be  assigned  to  eminence  in  the  several  de- 
partments of  intellectual  action,  a  question,  upon 
which  we  can  never  arrive  at  any  definite  conclu- 
sion, from  the  want  of  a  common  measure  of  com- 
parison. Sir  Wilham  Temple  esteemed  a  great 
poet,  the  "  bright,  consummate  flower  "  of  hu- 
manity, and  observes  that  "  of  all  the  members  of 
mankind  that  live  within  the  compass  of  a  thousand 
years,  for  one  man  that  is  born  capable  of  making 
a  great  poet,  there  may  be  a  thousand  born,  capa- 
ble of  making  as  great  generals  and  ministers  of 
state  as  any  in  story."  On  the  other  hand.  Sir 
AValtcr  Scott  thought  the  highest  success  in  litera- 
ture cheap,  in  comparison  with  the  deeds  of  a  man 
like  the  Duke  of  Wellington.     But,  whatever  dif- 


899673 


ference  of  opinion  there  may  be  on  these  points, 
all  Avill  admit  that,  among  writers  and  thinkers,  the 
largest  field  of  influence  is  enjoyed  by  those  who 
address  the  moral  nature  through  the  medium  of 
the  imaginative  faculties.  Mankind  here  meet 
upon  a  common  ground  ;  and  in  the  pages  of  the 
poet  and  the  novelist  find  refreshment  and  relaxa- 
tion, whatever  may  be  their  habitual  pursuits  or 
the  daily  business  of  their  minds.  The  influence 
of  writers  of  this  class  begins  with  the  first  pulse 
of  intellectual  life  and  ends  only  with  its  last  throb. 
They  twine  themselves  around  every  fibre  of  the 
growing  mind.  They  mould  and  color  every 
man's  life.  They  supply  motive  and  impulse  ; 
give  stability  to  unfixed  purposes  and  direction  to 
irregular  aims.  They  make  virtue  more  lovely  or 
vice  more  seductive.  They  weaken  or  enforce 
the  lessons  of  moral  truth  and  the  sanctions  of  re- 
ligion. Whatever  elevates  or  debases  man,  what- 
ever lifts  him  to  heaven  or  nails  him  to  earth,  what- 
ever embellishes  or  deforms  life,  whatever  makes 
it  stately,  heroic  and  glorious,  or  mean,  loathsome 
and  brutish,  the  passions  that  rage  like  blasts  from 
hell,  the  affections  that  breathe  like  airs  from 
heaven  —  all  find  in  them,  appropriate  food,  and 
draw  from  them  their  elements  of  growth. 


To  writers  of  this  class  we  may  give  the  general 
name  of  poets,  if  to  poetry  be  allowed  a  definition 
somewhat  arbitrary,  excluding  the  form  of  verse 
and  sufficiently  comprehensive  to  include  such 
works  as  the  Arabian  Nights,  Ivanhoe  and  the 
Sketch-Book.  In  view  of  the  important  influence 
exerted  by  these  writers  upon  the  public  mind,  I 
ask  your  attention  to  some  observations  upon  the 
relation  of  the  poet  to  his  age,  the  various  ele- 
ments that  modify  that  relation,  and  the  changes 
wrought  in  poetry  by  the  progress  of  society.  1 
need  offer  no  apology  for  selecting  a  subject  re- 
mote from  those  material  and  political  interests 
which  make  up  so  much  of  our  hfe.  We  meet  here 
as  scholars.  We  have  left  our  various  posts  of  duty 
and  occupation  to  breathe  again  the  untroubled 
air  of  contemplation,  and  to  seek  the  peace  that 
comes  from  "  backward-looking  thoughts." 

The  office  of  poetry  is  to  idealize  human  life ; 
to  connect  the  objects  of  thought  with  those  asso- 
ciations which  embellish,  dignify  and  exalt,  and  to 
keep  out  of  sight,  those  which  debase  and  deform  ; 
to  extract  from  the  common  world,  which  lies  at 
our  feet,  the  elements  of  the  romantic,  the  im- 
passioned and  the  imaginative ;  to  arrest  and  con- 


dense  the  delicate  spirit  of  beauty  which  hovers 
over  the  earth,  hkc  an  atmosphere,  and  to  give 
shape,  color  and  movement  to  its  airy  essence. 
Life  presents  itself  to  our  view  in  a  twofold  as- 
pect. It  has  its  poetical  and  prosaic  side ;  its 
face  and  its  reverse ;  and  different  minds,  by  a 
natural  affinity,  are  attracted  to  one  or  the  other 
of  these  aspects ;  and  indeed  the  same  mind  often 
passes  from  one  to  the  other,  as  it  is  swayed  by 
different  moods.  Hence  we  have  tragedy  and 
farce ;  the  historical  picture  and  the  caricature ; 
the  poem  and  the  parody ;  hence  the  gods  of 
Homer  and  the  gods  of  Lucian,  the  romance  of 
chivalry  and  Don  Quixote.  A  thousand  poetical 
associations  invest  the  ocean,  the  sailor  and  the 
ship  ;  all  of  which  vanish,  like  a  ghost  at  cock-crow, 
at  the  thought  of  tar,  sea-sickness  and  libels  for 
wages.  There  are  many  charming  pictures  of 
woodland  life  in  English  poetry,  as  in  the  early 
ballads,  and  best  of  all,  in  "As  You  Like  It ;"  and 
in  reading  these,  we  grant  the  poet  his  own  terms. 
We  are  willing  to  observe  from  his  point  of  view, 
and  to  overlook  the  plain  facts  of  the  case.  We 
forget  the  miserable  discomforts  inseparable  from 
such  a  life,  which  must  have  made  it  intolerable 
to  natures  so  delicately  organized  as  those  who  are 


represented  as  leading  it,  and  think  only  of  the 
sunshine  and  the  foliage,  the  fresh  turf  and  the 
bounding  deer.  Pastoral  life  too,  has  always  been 
a  favorite  theme  with  poets,  and  yet  in  point  of 
fact,  few  employments  are  less  poetical  than  the 
tending  of  sheep,  and  if  the  uniform  testimony  of 
observers  is  to  be  relied  upon,  there  are  few  per- 
sons, whose  manners  and  speech  are  further  re- 
moved from  an  ideal  standard,  than  shepherds. 
Here  also  we  take,  without  questioning,  the  poet's 
statement.  We  waive  all  inquiry  as  impertinent. 
We  accept  the  imaginative  aspect  as  the  true  one, 
and  surrender  ourselves  to  the  mellow  tones  of  the 
pastoral  reed,  whether  breathed  from  the  lips  of 
Theocritus,  Virgil,  or  Allan  Ramsay. 

But  though  the  office  of  poetry  be  at  all  times 
and  everywhere,  essentially  the  same,  it  will  vary 
in  its  expression  or  manifestation,  according  to  the 
instruments  and  materials  with  which  the  poet 
works,  the  scenes  in  which  he  is  placed,  and  the 
social  hfe  of  which  he  forms  a  part.  He  is  em-^  I 
_phaticdly  the  child  of  his  age.  However  original 
his  genius  may  be ;  however  sternly  he  may  refuse 
to  bend  his  knee  to  the  idols  of  his  time,  his  mind 
will  unconsciously  be  moulded  and  colored  by  the 
influences  that  surround  him,  even  by  those  which 


8 

he  resists.  His  whole  intellectual  structure  would 
be  changed,  had  the  accident  of  his  birth  happened 
thirty  years  sooner,  or  thirty  years  later.  A  thou- 
sand inevitable  elements  enter  into  the  composition 
of  that  verse  which  seems  to  flow  as  spontaneously 
as  the  bird  sings,  or  water  runs.  It  is  modified 
by  the  point  of  social  progress  attained  by  the 
state  in  which  he  lives,  by  the  greater  or  less 
amount  of  personal  liberty  enjoyed  by  its  citizens, 
by  the  troubled  or  peaceful  times  in  which  his  lot 
is  cast,  by  the  greater  or  less  consideration  in 
which  women  are  held  in  the  society  in  which 
he  is  reared,  by  the  presence  or  absence  of  an 
hereditary  nobility,  an  established  church  and  the 
law  of  primogeniture,  by  the  religious  tendencies 
of  his  country  or  age,  and  even  by  purely  physi- 
cal elements,  by  soil,  by  climate,  by  a  maritime  or 
mland  position,  by  the  wild  grandeur  of  mountain 
scenery  or  the  gentler  beauties  of  cultivated  plains. 
The  quality  of  two  minds  is  no  more  alike  than 
the  glory  of  two  stars,  and  yet,  as  the  stars  have 
been  grouped  into  clusters  and  constellations,  so 
do  poets  fall  into  classes  and  orders,  according 
to  the  point  of  view  from  which  they  are  con- 
templated, and  the  principle  by  which  they  are  ar- 
ranged.     The   poets   of  the   same   nation   have 


certain  distinctive  features  of  resemblance ;  so 
have  those  of  the  same  period,  and  those  of  the 
same  continent.  The  poets  of  the  age  of  Queen 
Ehzabeth  have  a  family  likeness  ;  so  have  those  of 
Queen  Anne  ,  and  those  of  Queen  Victoria.  The 
poetry  of  Europe  is  infinitely  diversified,  yet  there 
are  elements  common  to  it  all,  which  distinguish  it 
from  oriental  poetry.  The  poet  of  the  north  is 
not  like  the  poet  of  the  south ;  each  reproduces 
the  scenes  which  have  fed  the  growth  of  his  own 
mind.  Through  the  ruofcred  lines  of  the  former, 
a  sound  seems  to  gather  and  swell,  mingled  from 
the  roar  of  mountain  torrents,  the  groaning  of  pine 
trees  in  the  storm,  and  the  howl  of  the  wintry  blast 
over  the  snow-covered  plain  ;  while  the  song  of 
the  latter  breathes  softly  upon  the  ear,  and  comes 
laden  with  gales  of  balm,  the  voice  of  the  night- 
ingale, and  the  cool  dash  of  moonlight  fountains. 
Poetry  is  the  oldest  birth  of  the  human  mind. 
The  first  unravellings  of  that  veil  of  light  which 
God  has  woven  into  the  frame  of  man,  are  in  the 
form  of  verse.  A  poet  of  our  own  times  has  sup- 
posed that  the  first  poet  sung  when  the  rainbow 
first  shone  upon  the  "green,  undelugcd  earth,"  as  a 
covenant  between  God  and  man,  but  surely  sixteen 
hundred  years  had  not  rolled  by,  without  some 


10 

musical  utterance,  however  rude  and  uncouth,  of 
those  sensations  and  emotions,  which  are  felt  in 
the  blood  and  in  the  soul  of  man.  Suns  had  set, 
and  moons  had  risen,  and  the  sweet  influences  of 
the  stars  had  dropped  from  the  midnight  sky,  the 
spinning  earth  had  known  its  alternations  of  day 
and  night,  seed-time  and  harvest,  lovers  had  wooed 
and  maidens  had  been  won,  the  child  had  been 
born  and  the  old  man  had  been  carried  to  his  grave, 
joy  and  sorrow,  hope  and  fear,  smiles  and  tears, 
had  brightened  and  darkened  man's  life,  and  it 
cannot  be  that  the  minstrel  had  not  sung  —  that 
the  harp  of  Jubal  had  not  trembled  to  the  poet's 
touch. 

As  children  resemble  each  other  more  than  men, 
so  are  nations  more  alike  in  their  infancy  than  in 
their  mature  age.  All  early  poetry  is  marked, 
more  or  less  strongly,  by  the  same  general  charac- 
teristics. It  has  the  unstudied  movement,  and  the 
unconscious  charm  of  childhood.  It  fills  the  mind 
with  a  sense  of  the  golden  light  and  dewy  fresh- 
ness of  morning.  It  flows  from  an  age  which 
acknowledges  a  vivid  satisfaction  in  the  mere  pos- 
session of  life.  That  pleasure  in  the  simple  exer- 
cise of  the  faculties,  without  reference  to  the  end 
or  object  of  pursuit,  which  is  common  to  the  young 


11 

of  all  animals,  and  in  which  the  benevolent  obser- 
vation of  Paley  saw  the  most  striking  proof  of  the 
goodness  of  God,  is  then  the  heritage  of  the  race. 
It  is  a  privilege  to  be  alive  :  to  enjoy  the  pleasura- 
ble sensations  which  accompany  a  healthful  organ- 
ization ;  to  hear  the  bird  sing,  to  drink  the  red 
wine,  to  gaze  on  the  cheek  of  beauty.  The  natu- 
ral pleasures  which  lie  upon  the  lap  of  the  common 
earth  content  the  child-like  man.  The  feelino;  of 
satiety,  of  weariness  and  unrest,  of  longing  after 
some  ideal  and  unattainable  good,  is  as  yet  un- 
known. The  morning  star  of  hope  is  in  the 
ascendant,  and  not  the  evening  star  of  memory. 
The  poles  of  nature  are  not  yet  reversed.  The 
appetites  are  not  yet  perverted  from  their  legiti- 
mate function  of  means,  and  made  to  become  ends. 
That  unhappy  system  of  anticipation,  which  brings 
the  meal  before  the  hunger,  the  bed  before  the 
weariness,  has  not  begun.  It  is  no  disparagement 
to  a  brave  man  to  express  that  honest  fear  of  death 
which  results  naturally  from  an  honest  love  of  life. 
If  we  imagine  grown  up  men  carrying  into  the 
common  business  of  the  world,  that  heartiness,  that 
irrepressible  vivacity,  that  fulness  of  animal  life, 
which  children  put  into  their  play,  we  shall  have  a 
notion  of  that  unwithercd  world  which  surrounds 


12 

the  early  poet,  and  which  he  reproduces  in  his 
epic,  his  saga,  or  his  ballad.  The  heroes  of  Homer 
feel  their  life  in  every  limb.  They  recoil  from  the 
unfathomable  gulf  of  death,  as  children  from  a 
dark  room.  That  same  sense  of  the  value  of  mere 
existence  beats,  like  a  strong  pulse,  through  the 
early  poetry  of  Spain,  England,  and  Germany. 
The  sorrow  which  is  breathed  over  the  dead  body  of 
Arcite,  in  the  Knights'  tale  of  Chaucer,  flows  chiefly 
from  the  feeling  of  what  he  had  lost  in  losing  life. 

Why  woldest  thou  be  ded  ?  this  women  crie, 
And  haddest  gold  ynough,  and  Emelie. 

All  early  poetry  is  essentially  picturesque.  It 
is  written  at  a  time  when  the  eye  is  the  chief 
instrument  of  knowledge.  Everything  is  seen 
clearly  and  presented  in  the  vertical  light  and 
sharply-defined  shadows  of  noon-day.  Illustrations 
are  used  simply  to  illustrate,  without  inquiring 
whether  they  dignify  and  embellish.  The  crowd 
of  impressions  comes  in  too  thick  and  fast  to  admit 
of  discrimination  and  analysis.  Epithets  are  not 
chosen  from  any  particular  sense  of  adaptation. 
The  poet  is  too  full  of  his  matter  to  think  of  his 
style.  He  cannot  pause  in  his  rush  of  feeling 
to  select  his  word  with  the  care  with  which  the 


13 

worker  in  mosaic  does  his  color.  Homely  images 
are  saved  from  being  vulgar,  and  minute  details 
from  being  tedious,  by  their  vividness  and  truth. 
Poetry  is  a  record  of  sensations,  not  reflections. 
The  glance  has  not  become  introspective.  The 
harvest  of  a  quiet  eye,  which  broods  and  sleeps 
upon  its  own  heart,  is  not  yet  gathered.  The 
mind  is  too  busy  with  the  young,  untried  world 
around  it,  to  dwell  at  home  and  speculate  on 
its  own  essence  and  organization.  The  exulting 
sweep  of  its  own  wings  is  too  delightful  to  admit 
of  pause  and  inquiry  into  the  law  by  which  they 
are  moved.  To  employ  terms  which  have  become 
naturalized  into  the  language,  everything  has  an 
objective  and  not  a  subjective  reality.  The  pro- 
cess of  Berkley  and  the  idealists  is  reversed.  The 
mute  forms  of  nature  are  clothed  with  life,  and  the 
earth,  the  air,  and  the  sea  arc  peopled  with  spirit- 
ual beings.  The  interval  which  separates  the  hu- 
man soul  from  all  other  of  God's  works  is  not 
apprehended.  So  far  from  regarding  his  own 
mind  as  the  highest  manifestation  of  creative  pow- 
er, the  early  poet  bows  in  awe  and  adoration  be- 
fore the  beauty  and  grandeur  of  the  visible  world, 
as  something  mightier  than  himself  The  moun- 
tain appals  him  with  its  frown.    In  its  shady  depths 


'^•1 


14 

lurk  the  hoofed  satyr  and  the  bearded  faun.  The 
rushing  blast  chills  him  with  fear.  Diana  and  her 
nymphs  are  sweeping  by  in  the  storm  of  chase,  or 
in  another  age  and  clime,  the  wild  huntsman  is 
pursuing  his  spectral  game,  "  the  hunter  and  the 
deer  a  shade."  A  shaping  spirit  of  imagination 
hangs  over  the  earth  and  fills  it  with  life.     Hence 

The  intelligible  forms  of  ancient  poets, 

The  fair  humanities  of  okl  religion, 

The  power,  the  beauty  and  the  majesty 

That  had  her  haunts  in  dale,  or  piny  mountain 

Or  forest  by  slow  stream,  or  pebbly  spring 

Or  chasm  or  watery  dejsths  ; 

Hence  the  fair  forms  of  worship  to  which  the 
graceful  genius  of  Greece  gave  birth  ;  the  wood- 
nymph  in  the  forest  and  the  naiad  of  the  stream  ; 
the  sun  imaged  as  a  golden-haired  youth,  and  the 
moon  shining  on  the  hunter's  face,  symbolized 
into  Diana  bending  over  her  sleeping  Endymion. 
Hence,  too,  those  delicate  beings,  the  creation  of 
modern  romantic  fiction. 

Whose  midnight  revels  by  a  forest-side 
Or  fountain,  some  belated  peasant  sees 
Or  dreams  he  sees,  while  overhead  the  moon 
Sits  arbitress,  and  nearer  to  the  earth 
Wheels  her  pale  course, 

who  throw  their  peculiar  charm  over  so  much  of 


15 

early  English  literature  and  of  whose  agency 
Shakspeare  has  availed  himself  in  his  INIidsumnier 
Night's  Dream,  with  such  creative  power  and 
artistic  skill,  as  to  form  one  of  the  most  strikins; 
triumphs  of  even  his  miraculous  genius. 

As  society  advances  from  infancy  to  mature  age, 
this  process  is  essentially  reversed.  If  the  early 
poet  may  find  his  appropriate  type  in  the  child  at 
his  morning  play,  glowing  with  animal  life,  and 
seeing  the  sunshine  of  his  own  breast  reflected 
from  the  dewy  world  around  him,  the  poet  of  a 
later  age  and  of  modern  times  may  be  compared  to 
the  ripened  man,  in  his  evening  walk.  A  change 
has  come  over  the  spirit  of  the  scene.  The  tone 
of  coloring  is  more  subdued  ;  the  lights  and  sha- 
dows less  strongly  defined,  the  movement  less  ani- 
mated. Life  is  more  compact  of  reflection  than 
of  sensation.  We  do  not  merely  observe,  but  we 
analyze,  dissect  and  combine.  The  mute  forms  of 
the  external  world  have  lost  their  objective  charac- 
ter. They  are  linked  to  long  trains  of  association 
and  represent  states  of  mind  and  moods  of  feel- 
ing. That  sharp  and  painful  spirit  of  observation 
which  Shakspeare  has  embodied  in  the  character 
of  Jaqucs,  which  moralizes  material  forms  into  a 
thousand   similes   drawn   from   artificial   life  and 


16 

manners,  is  called  into  being.  The  mind  itself  is 
a  point  of  departure  ;  a  standard  to  which  all  other 
things  are  referred.  The  poet  of  civihzation  is 
made  acquainted  with  the  thoughts  of  other  men, 
and  with  his  own,  before  he  becomes  familiar  with 
Nature,  and  thus  looks  at  it  through  a  medium 
which  colors  with  its  own  hues,  the  objects  ob- 
served. Hence  descriptive  poetry  is  not  so  much 
a  description  of  what  is  seen,  as  a  transcript  of 
the  feelings  in  the  poet's  own  mind  awakened 
by  it.  Thus  Thomson's  descriptions  are  glowing 
but  indistinct ;  Cowper's,  minute  and  accurate  ; 
Byron's,  vivid  and  impassioned  ;  Wordsworth's, 
profound  ;  Shelley's,  ideal  ;  Tennyson's,  fan- 
tastic;  Bryant's,  natural  and  true.  Indeed,  de- 
scriptive poetry  is  the  growth  of  a  comparatively 
late  age,  in  which  men,  weary  of  study  or  busi- 
ness, throw  themselves  upon  the  lap  of  Nature  for 
refreshment  and  repose,  and  chronicle,  with  some- 
thing of  a  lover's  fondness,  her  changing  expres- 
sions. The  early  poet  deals  with  the  visible  world 
in  a  familiar  and  business-like  way  ;  very  much  as 
the  sailor  talks  of  the  sea,  or  the  farmer  of  his 
farm.  His  descriptions  serve  the  purposes  of 
scenery  only,  or  come  in  as  introductory  to  some- 
thing else.     He  has  no  more  idea  of  describing 


17 

Joots  own  sake,  than  an  artist  would  have  of  frain- 
ing^  apiece  of  bare  canvass. 

In  an  advanced  period  of  society,  a  new  element 
of  the  poetical  is  evolved  in  the  contrast  between 
the  poet's  ideal  world  and  the  real  one  around 
him.  The  mind  of  the  eai'ly  bard  seems  to  be 
ahvays  in  unison  with  the  scenes  and  the  hfe  into 
which  he  is  thrown.  His  world  is  fashioned  of 
kindly  elements  and  every  one  in  it  has  his  share 
of  satisfaction.  The  face  of  Nature  has  not  yet 
worn  a  step-mother's  frown.  The  blue  sky  of 
God's  providence  bends  lovingly  over  all.  The 
child  is  not  met  with  the  pitiless  question  "  why 
were  you  born  ?  "  The  contrasts  of  life  are  not 
so  violent  and  its  extremes  not  so  far  apart.  There 
are  no  glittering  inaccessible  peaks  of  wealth  and 
splendor,  with  hopeless  chasms  of  poverty  and  de- 
gradation at  their  feet.  In  the  highest  station,  the 
element  of  a  common  humanity  is  always  promi- 
nent. The  king  is  not  a  ceremony  or  an  abstrac- 
tion, but  a  man  crowned  and  reigning.  Power 
belongs  to  him  who  can  best  vindicate  his  claim  to 
it  by  superior  strength,  courage  or  wisdom.  Life 
is  full  of  dramatic  changes  and  singular  alterna- 
tions of  fortune.  Palaces  and  castles  are  the  re- 
wards of  enterprise  and  hardihood.    A  single  battle 


18 

may  cause  the  king  and  the  wanderer,  the  noble 
and  the  outlaw  to  change  places.  The  things  in 
which  men  differ  from  each  other  —  the  accidents 
of  birth,  rank  and  station  —  are  less  conspicuous 
than  those  in  which  they  are  alike.  Cloth  of  frieze 
rubs  against  cloth  of  gold.  Thus  the  substance  of 
poetry  is  ready  made  and  requires  only  the  form 
of  verse.  The  relation  of  the  poet  to  this  natural 
and  hearty  world  around  him  is  all  that  he  can  ask. 
To  the  rude  spiritsof  his  time,  he  supplies  their 
highest  intellectual  excitement,  and  the  boon  is  ac- 
knowledged with  a  warmth  and  fulness  proportion- 
ate to  their  impressible  organization.  An  easily 
gathered  harvest  of  smiles  and  tears  rewards  his 
efforts.  Wealth  enriches,  power  protects,  and  rank 
caresses  him.  Unconsciously  to  themselves,  they 
reverence  the  breath  of  God  in  the  poet's  soul, 
and  the  infinite  capacities  of  their  own  natures  are 
not  revealed  to  themselves,  until  they  hear  the  min- 
strel singing  to  his  harp. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  a  highly  civilized  age, 
the  poet  finds  himself  perplexed  with  contradic- 
tions which  he  cannot  reconcile,  and  anomalies 
which  he  cannot  comprehend.  Coming  out  from 
the  soft  ideal  world  in  which  he  has  dreamed 
away  his  youth,  he  is  constantly  repelled  by  some 


19 

iron  reality.  The  aspect  of  life  to  him  seems 
cold,  hard  and  prosaic.  It  renews  the  legend  of 
(Edipus  and  the  Sphinx.  It  propounds  to  him  a 
riddle,  with  a  face  of  stone,  which  he  must  guess 
or  be  devoured.  It  is  an  age  of  frio-htful  extremes 
of  social  condition  ;  of  colossal  wealth  and  heart- 
crushing  poverty  ;  of  courts  and  custom-houses  ; 
of  corn-laws  and  game-laws  ;  of  man-traps  and 
spring-guns.  The  smoke  from  the  almshouse  and 
the  jail  blots  the  pure  sky.  The  race  of  life  is 
not  to  the  swift,  nor  its  battle  to  the  strong.  A 
sensitive  conscience,  a  delicate  taste,  the  gift  of 
genius  and  the  ornament  of  learning,  are  rather 
obstacles,  than  helps,  in  the  way  of  what  is  called 
success.  Men  are  turned  into  petrifactions  by  the 
slow-dropping  influences  of  artificial  hfe.  The 
heroic  virtues  of  the  elder  age  have  vanished  with 
its  free  speech  and  its  simple  manners.  There 
seems  to  be  no  pulse  of  hearty  life  in  anything, 
whether  it  be  good  or  bad.  Virtue  is  timid  and 
vice  is  cunning.  Love  is  cold  and  calculating, 
and  hatred  masks  its  dagger  with  a  smile.  In  tliis 
world  of  hollow  forms  and  gilded  seeming,  the 
claims  of  the  poet  are  unheeded,  and  his  voice 
unlieard.  The  gifts  which  he  prolfers  are  unvalued 
by  those  who  have  forgotten  the  dreams  of  their 


20 

youthj  and  wandered  away  from  the  primal  light 
of  their  being.  He  looks  around  him,  and  the 
mournful  fact  presses  itself  upon  his  conviction, 
that  there  is  no  cover  laid  for  him  at  Nature's 
table.  His  very  existence  seems  to  him  a  mis- 
take. And  now  begins  that  fiery  struggle  in 
which  the  temper  of  his  genius  is  to  be  tried,  and 
which  moves  the  deepest  springs  of  compassion 
and  sympathy  in  the  human  heart.  Poetry  has 
invented  nothing  more  pathetic,  history  has  re- 
corded nothing  more  sad,  than  those  mournful  ex- 
periences which  are  so  often  the  lot  of  the  scholar 
and  the  man  of  genius.  The  dethronement  of 
kings  and  the  beggary  of  nobles  are  less  affecting 
than  the  wrongs,  the  sorrows,  the  long-protracted 
trials,  the  forlorn  conditions  of  great  and  gifted 
-minds ;  nobles,  whose  patents  are  of  elder  date 
than  the  pyramids,  and  kings  by  the  anointment  of 
God's  own  hand.  What  tragedies  can  be  read,  in 
the  history  of  literature,  deeper  than  Macbeth, 
more  moving  than  Lear  !  Milton,  old,  poor  and 
blind,  selhng  Paradise  Lost  for  five  pounds  ;  Dry- 
den  beaten  by  ruffians  at  the  prompting  of  a  worth- 
less peer,  who,  in  Plato's  commonwealth,  would 
have  been  changing  the  poet's  plate  ;  Tasso,  a 
creature  as  delicately  moulded  as  if,  like  the  Peris, 


21 

he  had  fed  upon  nothing  grosser  than  the  breath 
of  flowers,  wearing  out  the  best  years  of  his  hfe  in 
the  gloom  of  a  dungeon ;  Racine  hurried  to  his 
grave  by  the  rebuke  of  a  heartless  king ;  Chatter- 
ton,  at  midnight,  homeless  and  hungry,  bathing  the 
unpitying  stones  of  London  with  the  hot  tears  of 
anguish  and  despair ;  Johnson,  at  the  age  of  thirty- 
six,  dining  behind  a  screen  at  the  house  of  Cave, 
because  he  was  too  shabbily  dressed  to  appear  at 
the  table ;  Burns  taken  from  the  plough,  which  he 
had  "  followed  in  glory  and  in  joy  upon  the  moun- 
tain side,"  to  guage  ale-firkins  and  watch  for  con- 
traband tobacco. 

The  false  position  in  which  men  of  genius  so 
often  find  themselves  placed  in  relation  to  their 
age,  and  the  painful  and  protracted  efforts  they 
must  make  in  order  to  gain  a  true  one,  have  given 
to  modern  literature  some  of  its  prominent  charac- 
teristics. Hence  that  half-unconscious  sympathy 
which  poets  feel  with  characters,  like  Robin  Hood, 
Rob  Roy  and  Charles  de  Moor,  who  embody  a 
protest  against  their  times  ;  who  mean,  like  Jack 
Cade,  "  to  dress  the  commonwealth  and  turn  it  and 
set  a  new  nap  u])on  it ;  "  who  presume,  to  borrow 
a  daring  expression  of  Schiller's,  to  grind  down  the 
gaps  in  the  sword  of  Almighty  justice,     [fence 


22 

much  of  that  dreary  melancholy,  which  over- 
shadowed the  mind  of  the  stout-hearted  and  pious 
Johnson,  whose  sombre  hue  darkens  the  pages  of 
his  Rambler  and  Rasselas,  and  is  concentrated  in 
that  celebrated  couplet,  in  which  the  words  seem 
to  fall  like  drops  of  blood  from  a  lacerated  heart : 

But  ah  !  what  ills  the  scholar's  life  assail, 
Toil,  envy,  want,  the  patron  and  the  jail. 

To  this  source  we  may  trace,  in  part,  that  personal 
element  which  glows  so  intensely  in  the  lyric  po- 
etry of  Schiller,  and  even  sickhes  o'er  his  otherwise 
admirable  dramas.  This,  too,  gave  something  of 
their  depth  and  sternness  to  the  powerful  pictures 
of  Crabbe.  Hence  that  numerous  tribe  of  poets 
and  poetasters  who,  of  late  years,  have  so  filled 
the  groves  of  Parnassus  with  their  melancholy 
notes,  as  sad,  if  not  as  sweet  as  those  of  the  night- 
ingale, whose  young  affections  are  ever  running 
to  waste,  upon  whose  withered  hearts  the  dew  of 
hope  can  never  fall,  and  who  are  ever  longing  to 
be  a  breeze,  a  cloud,  a  wave,  or  a  sound  —  some- 
thing that  shall  not  have  nerves  to  feel  and  a  heart 
to  ache. 

In  the  struggle  of  which  I  have  spoken,  the 
poet  has  need  of  all  his  good  angels.  Without 
faith,  strength  of  purpose  and  stern  self-respect. 


23 

the  very  delicacy  of  organization  which  makes 
him  a  poet  will  only  increase  tlie  odds  against 
him.  The  dangers  which  assail  him  are  various 
and  menacing  to  different  parts  of  his  nature. 
He  is  tempted  to  make  his  poetry  a  mere  medium 
forthe^  expression  of  his  own  discontent ;  to  fall 
into  a  tone  of  gloomy  egotism,  of  querulous  lament- 
ation or  of  bold  arraio^ninff  of  that  Providence, 
whose  purposes  he  cannot  comprehend  and  will 
not  submit  to.  The  habit  of  morbid  introspection, 
into  which  he  is  likely  to  fall,  leads  inevitably  to  a 
self-exaggerating  mood  of  mind,  and  this  is  a  most 
fruitful  source  of  unhappiness.  Irving,  in  his 
Tales  of  a  Traveller,  has  drawn  a  lively  sketch  of 
a  poor  devil  author,  who  went  up  to  London  as 
a  great  genius,  and  starved  miserably  in  that  ca- 
pacity, till  it  occurred  to  him  that  he  was  by  no 
means  so  gifted  a  person  as  he  and  his  friends 
had  supposed,  and  he  had  since  lived  very  comfort- 
ably, as  a  penny-a-liner.  All,  however,  do  not 
come  to  this  self-knowledge.  The  history  of  liter- 
ature, and  especially  of  art,  abounds  with  sad 
records  of  men,  whose  lives  have  been  wasted  be- 
cause they  aimed  at  a  mark  beyond  their  powers, 
mistaking  aspiration  for  inspiration,  sensibility  for 
genius,  an  impressible  organization  for  a  creative 


24 

mind.  The  remark  of  Coleridge  is  perfectly  true, 
that  "  where  the  subject  is  taken  immediately  from 
the  author's  personal  sensations  and  experiences, 
the  excellence  of  a  particular  poem  is  but  an 
equivocal  mark,  and  often  a  fallacious  pledge  of 
genuine  poetical  power."  But  the  young  espe- 
cially are  apt  to  mistake  strength  of  feeling  for 
power  of  expression,  to  exhaust  themselves  in 
unavailing  efforts  to  give  utterance  to  what  are 
merely  emotions  and  not  conceptions,  and  to  de- 
lude themselves  with  the  notion  that  it  is  merely 
some  formal  defect,  which  care  and  training  may 
supply,  that  keeps  them  from  the  highest  suc- 
cess. But  with  the  man  of  true  genius,  the  inward 
voice  and  the  outward  utterance  are  simultaneous, 
and  where  imagination  does  body  forth  the  forms 
of  things  unknown,  the  poet's  pen  will  surely  turn 
them  to  shape. 

But  in  this  conflict,  the  poet  is  in  especial  dan- 
ger of  suffering  moral  shipwreck.  He  is  in  dan- 
ger of  becoming  the  tool  and  slave  of  his  age ;  of 
bartering  away  conscience  and  peace  of  mind  for 
ease,  delicate  living,  fine  clothes  and  dainty  food ; 
of  falling  asleep  on  the  lap  of  society  and  waking  to 
the  consciousness  that  the  invincible  locks  of  his 
genius  have  been  shorn  away  by  the  hands  of  the 


25 

enclitiiitress.  It  is  hard  to  be  loyal  to  truth,  when 
its  wages  are  want  and  obscurity  ;  to  keep  the  erect 
attitude  of  sturdy  virtue  when  house  and  land  may 
be  gained  by  bending  before  the  idols  of  the  time. 
Burns  has  recorded  that  in  his  experience  nothing 
was  so  sad  as  a  man  seeking  work ;  more  sad  is  the 
sight  when  that  man  is  a  man  of  genius  ;  and  sad- 
dest of  all  is  it  when,  enforced  by  fancied  or  real 
want,  he  consents  to  do  the  work,  which  is  degrada- 
tion and  infamy.  In  this  extremity,  let  him  hold  fast 
to  the  integrity  of  his  soul.  Let  him  learn  that  vir- 
tue may  ennoble  poverty,  dignify  neglect,  and  exalt 
a  lowly  station ;  that  peace  of  mind  is  better  than 
a  competence,  and  a  good  conscience  more  to  be 
desired  than  a  good  estate.  Is  he  called  upon  to 
suffer  want,  to  languish  in  obscurity,  to  be  the  vic- 
tim of  persecution,  to  die,  perhaps,  of  heart-sick- 
ness ?  Let  him  drink  in  silence  the  cup  that  is 
held  to  his  lips.  Such  has  been  the  lot  of  the  wise 
and  gifted  before  him,  and  there  was  no  covenant 
at  his  birth,  that  he  should  be  exempt  from  the 
common  chances  of  humanity.  Let  liim  eat  his 
crust  of  bread  in  innocence  and  thankfuhiess.  Let 
hmi  dwell  contentedly  in  his  mean  abode,  whose 
threshold  is  not  crossed  by  friendly  forms,  and 
whose  echoes  are  not  stirred  by  friendly  voices. 


26 

Angel  forms  shall  there  minister  to  him ;  the  se- 
rene brow  of  faith,  the  cordial  smile  of  hope,  the 
overshadowing  wings  of  peace  shall  be  around 
him ;  his  own  far-darting  thoughts  shall  be  his  lov- 
ing friends;  the  wealth  of  his  own  imagination 
shall  hang  shapes  of  beauty  upon  the  walls  and 
empurple  its  floor  with  celestial  roses.  The  smile 
of  God  shall  beam  upon  it  and  the  glory  of  its 
gates  shall  be  as  the  glory  of  heaven. 

From  what  has  been  said  of  the  relation  of  the 
poet  to  his  age,  we  might  infer  a  fact  which  lite- 
rary history  confirms,  that  the  poetry  which  has 
the  most  vitality  and  durabihty,  is  that  which  has 
flowed  most  naturally  from  the  poet's  age,  and 
been  the  strongest  infusion  of  the  circumstances 
and  scenes,  among  which  it  was  written.  The 
universal  popularity  of  the  poetry  of  Homer  is  to 
be  ascribed  as  much  to  its  truth  as  to  its  genius. 
It  has  an  historical,  as  well  as  an  imaginative  value. 
From  internal  evidence,  we  have  the  strongest  as- 
surance that  it  is  a  true  picture  of  the  heroic  age  ; 
as  we  pronounce  of  some  portraits  that  they  are 
good  likenesses,  without  ever  having  seen  the 
originals.  We  call  the  Ihad  the  perfection  of  the 
epic,  but  the  poet  was  unconscious  that  he  was 
writing  what  we  call  an  epic  poem.    He  wrote,  as 


27 

his  own  genius  and  the  spirit  of  his  age  prompted, 
and  we  name  the  result  the  epic,  and  from  it  we 
draw  the  definition  of  that  form  of  poetry.  He  in- 
troduces supernatural  machinery,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  because  it  was  the  faith  of  his  time.  To 
him  who  then  walked  upon  the  shores  of  the 
^gean,  Thetis  and  her  nymphs  were  not  cold 
shadows,  but  warm  realities.  He  invests  his  gods 
and  goddesses  with  a  port,  a  majesty,  a  mixture  of 
the  terrible  and  the  graceful,  which  can  come  only 
from  that  unquestioning  faith,  which  trembles  while 
it  delineates.  To  him  may  be  apphed,  w  ith  pecu- 
har  propriety,  the  hnes, 

Prevailing  poet,  whose  undoubting  mind 
Believed  the  magic  wonders  which  he  sang. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  Iliad  as  the  work  of  a  single 
mind,  and  that  opinion  is  likely  always  to  form  a 
part  of  the  popular  literary  creed,  whatever  may 
be  the  views  of  the  initiated.  The  common  mind 
will  never  consent  to  exchange  that  "  blind  old 
man  of  Scio's  rocky  isle,"  for  a  bodiless  abstraction, 
nor  blot  out  that  single  and  blazing  star  of  poetry 
from  the  dark  morning  sky,  and  put  in  its  place  a 
nebulous  galaxy  composed  of  inimmerabic  lesser 
lights,  without  a  nanic. 


28 

In  all  epic  poetry  since  the  Iliad  we  observe  in 
a  greater  or  less  degree,  the  faltering  touch  and 
the  diluted  coloring  which  distinguish  the  copy 
from  the  original.  When  the  ^neid  was  written, 
it  was  no  longer  an  age  of  childlike  faith  in  the 
unseen,  but  of  speculation  and  skepticism ;  when, 
as  Cicero  says,  it  was  a  wonder  that  two  augurs 
could  look  in  each  other's  faces  without  laughing  ; 
and  the  effect  is  seen  in  the  fainter  lines  and  less 
vivid  hues  in  which  its  mythological  personages 
are  drawn.  There  is  a  certain  hesitation  percep- 
tible in  the  artist's  hand.  His  gods  and  goddesses 
have  not  the  unforced  dignity  and  natural  air  of 
command  of  the  deities  of  that  elder  hneage. 
They  shine  with  a  cold,  lunar  light,  compared  with 
that  full  meridian  blaze.  The  truth  of  the  ob- 
servation which  has  been  made  may  be  more 
clearly  perceived  by  comparing  the  ^Eneid  with  the 
Georgics.  Here  the  poet's  foot  is  upon  his  own 
native  heather.  Every  line  has  the  racy  flavor  of 
the  soil.  The  hot  sun  and  transparent  sky  of  Italy 
hang  over  the  scene,  and  its  blue  waters  enclose  it 
as  in  a  frame.  The  song  of  the  cicada,  the  rustle 
of  the  vine-leaf,  the  hum  of  the  bee,  the  voice  of 
the  reaper,  the  cooing  of  the  wood-pigeon  ;  the 
very  sounds  which  had  charmed  his  own  childhood 


29 

in  his  father's  fields  on  the  banks  of  the  Mincius, 
and  revealed  to  him  the  secret  of  his  inspiration, 
breathe  through  its  exquisite  poetry  and  color  it 
with  the  warm  hues  of  life. 

The  revelation  of  Christianity  has  of  course  been 
unfavorable  to  that  supernatural  machinery,  which 
forms  a  part  of  the  very  definition  of  the  epic,  and 
in  all  poems  of  that  class  which  have  been  written 
since,  it  has  been  rather  an  obstacle  to  be  over- 
come, in  deference  to  estabhshed  rules,  than  a  help. 
Nothing  proves  the  boldness  of  Milton's  genius 
more  than  the  choice  of  his  subject ;  nothing  shows 
its  vast  resources  more  than  the  manner  in  which 
he  has  treated  it.  Its  difficulties  were  almost  su- 
perhuman, but  he  has  grappled  them  with  a  com- 
mensurate power.  Yet  may  we  not  ask,  with  that 
reverence  with  which  so  majestic  a  name  should 
ever  be  approached,  whether  he  has  not  attempted 
an  enterprise  in  which  complete  success  was  im- 
possible, whether  there  is  not  something  of  ne- 
cessity debasing  in  those  material  attril)utcs  with 
which  he  has  clothed  the  beings  who  are  only  to 
be  spiritually  discerned  with  the  eye  of  faith, 
whether  we  do  not  pass  lightly  over  such  pas- 
sages, to  linger  and  dwell  upon  lliose,  whose 
unequalled    grandeur    and    beauty  have    no  such 


30 

mixture  of  alloy,  and  whether  it  is  not  to  be 
wished  that  he  had  at  least  paused  at  the  foot  of 
that  throne,  before  whose  glories  angels  bow  and 
veil  their  faces. 

The  remarks  which  have  been  made  upon  Ho- 
mer, may  be  applied  in  their  spirit  to  the  great 
work  of  Dante,  which  in  originality  and  its  subse- 
quent influence  upon  literature,  occupies  a  place 
second  only  to  that  of  the  Iliad.  Indeed  no  work 
of  the  human  mind  is  more  entirely  original  than 
this.  It  draws  its  vigorous  growth  from  the  deep 
soil  of  its  age.  We  see  in  it  the  religion,  the  phi- 
losophy, the  science  and  the  learning  of  that  period 
set  to  the  music  of  the  noblest  verse  ;  that  blend- 
ing of  the  Grecian  and  Gothic  elements  which 
characterized  the  times  ;  the  unquestioning  faith  in 
all  that  the  church  prescribed,  in  the  wild  legends 
which  it  invented  or  circulated,  and  in  the  gross 
material  images  by  which  it  symbolized  the  future 
world,  and  that  strange  mixture  of  Christianity  and 
Pagan  mythology  which  brings  together  Lucifer 
and  Charon  without  any  sense  of  incongruity.  Its 
picturesqueness  and  intensity  of  feeling  flow  from 
the  sincere  and  earnest  spirit  in  which  it  was  writ- 
ten. The  poet  relates  the  wonders  he  has  seen, 
with  the  good  faith  and  the  circumstantial  detail  of 


31 

a  witness  on  the  stand.  No  poetry  has  the  intense 
vitahty  of  Dante's.  The  words  burn  and  glow  hke 
coals  of  fire.  To  borrow  a  phrase  of  Ben  Jon- 
son's,  it  is  "rammed  with  life."  It  was  the  m-owth 
of  a  mind  which  had  been  kindled  by  indignation 
at  what  it  had  suffered,  and  grief  at  what  it  had 
lost,  to  a  heat  like  that  of  the  central  caverns  of 
Etna.  The  mournful  experiences  of  the  lover 
whose  world  of  hope  and  joy  had  been  shattered 
into  fragments,  of  the  baffled  pohtician,  of  the 
homeless  exile  whose  daily  food  had  long  been  the 
salt  bread  of  dependence,  only  serve  to  deepen  the 
earnestness  with  which  he  writes,  and  to  add  re- 
hef,  distinctness  and  precision  to  his  wonderful 
pictures. 

Further  illustrations  of  the  same  general  truth 
may  be  seen  in  the  Orlando  Furioso  of  Ariosto,  that 
bright  mirror  of  romance  which  reflects  so  clearly 
the  picturesque  features  of  an  age  of  chivalry ;  in 
the  Canterbury  Tales  of  Chaucer,  which  give  us  so 
lively  a  picture  of  the  society  and  manners  of  Eng- 
land at  the  time  when  they  were  written,  and  in 
the  early  ballad  poetry  of  England  and  Spain,  so 
full  of  morning  freshness  and  overflowing  life. 
Nor  is  our  own  age  without  approi)riate  exam})les. 
One  of  its  most  striking  poems  is  the    Kaust  of 


32 

Goethe,  and  the  most  striking  thing  in  it  is  the  char- 
acter of  Mephistopheles.  This  conception  was 
formed  in  the  poet's  mind  at  an  early  period  in  his 
hfe,  before  the  breaking  out  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, and  it  may  naturally  enough  have  been  sug- 
gested to  an  observation  so  penetrating  and  compre- 
hensive as  his,  by  the  character  of  the  times.  It 
was  then  one  of  the  dreariest  periods  in  the  history 
of  the  world ;  of  heartless  skepticism  in  religion, 
of  shallow  materialism  in  philosophy,  of  tame  mo- 
notony in  literature,  and  of  hideous  profligacy  in 
social  life.  Of  such  an  age,  Mephistopheles  is  the 
type  and  exponent.  He  is  an  embodied  sneer. 
He  believes  in  nothing,  hopes  in  nothing,  sympa- 
thizes with  nothing.  He  represents  a  civihzation 
which  has  passed  from  ripeness  to  rottenness.  If 
we  suppose  a  man,  thoroughly  petrified  by  a  long 
course  of  libertinism  in  corrupt  cities  and  profli- 
gate courts,  who  has  lost  all  faith  in  the  honor  of 
man,  and  the  purity  of  woman,  clothed  with  super- 
natural powers  of  body  and  mind,  we  have  an  out- 
line of  that  character  which  the  plastic  hand  of  the 
poet  has  so  skilfully  filled  up. 

The  gloomy  discontent  of  Byron  owed  much  of 
the  response  which  it  met  in  the  public  mind,  to 
the  time  at  which  it  was  uttered.    The  period  from 


33 

the  breaking  out  of  the  French  Revolution,  to  the 
battle  of  Waterloo,  was  one  of  intense  and  unpar- 
alleled excitement.  The  minds  of  men  were  kept 
in  a  constant  eflervescence  by  the  magic  of  change 
and  the  whirl  of  revolution.  There  was  passing 
before  their  eyes,  the  spectacle  of  a  mighty  drama, 
with  Europe  for  the  stage  and  kings  for  actors, 
managed  by  tliat  extraordinary  man,  compared 
with  whose  dazzling  career  all  that  history  has  re- 
corded is  tame,  all  that  fiction  has  invented  is 
cold.  Byron  wrote  at  the  close  of  tliis  period, 
when  the  natural  reaction  was  beginning  to  be 
felt ;  when  the  torpor,  which  follows  a  long-con- 
tinued tension  of  the  faculties,  was  stealing  over 
men's  minds,  and  their  brains  were  throbbing  with 
the  sickness  consequent  upon  the  deep  draughts  of 
intellectual  excitement,  which  they  had  drained. 
The  energetic  verses,  in  which  he  bewailed  the 
wreck  of  his  own  lawless  passions,  fell  upon  the 
general  mind  like  sparks  upon  combustible  mate- 
rials, and  the  result  was  a  conflagration  of  unhap- 
piness  and  misanthropy,  the  ashes  of  which  are 
not  yet  cold. 

The  great  success  of  tlie  poetry  of  Burns  and 
its  permanent  influence  upon  the  literature  of  his 
country,  is  also  in  a  great  measure  to  be  ascribed 


34 

to  this  vital  element  of  truth  and  reality  of  which  I 
have  spoken.  In  his  dedication  of  his  poems  to 
the  noblemen  and  gentlemen  of  the  Caledonian 
Hunt,  he  says,  "the  poetic  genius  of  my  country 
found  me,  as  the  prophetic  bard  Elijah  did  Elisha, 
at  the  plough,  and  threw  her  inspiring  mantle  over 
me.  She  bade  me  sing  the  loves,  the  joys,  the 
rural  scenes  and  the  rural  pleasures  of  my  native 
soil,  in  my  native  tongue."  Well  was  it  for  him 
and  for  us  that  he  obeyed  this  call ;  that  he  drew 
his  inspiration  from  the  world  around  him  ;  that  he 
found  his  themes  lying  at  his  feet,  in  the  daisy  up- 
torn  by  his  plough,  in  the  field-mouse  whose  nest 
his  furrow  had  laid  bare,  in  the  devotional  exer- 
cises of  his  father's  cottage,  in  the  "  banks  and 
braes"  of  his  own  "bonnie  Doon."  The  result 
is  that  the  songs  of  the  peasant  bard  have  been 
borne,  like  the  seeds  of  wild  flowers,  over  the  earth, 
and  wherever  they  have  fallen  they  have  taken 
root  in  the  human  heart.  They  are  mingling  with 
the  flow  of  the  Thames,  the  Ganges,  and  St.  Law- 
rence. The  genius  and  the  misfortune  of  Burns 
are  forever  associated  with  the  glory  and  the  shame 
of  Scotland.  He  has  poured  round  her  hills  and 
her  valleys  a  hght  unknown  before.  Her  forests 
have  since  waved  more  majestically ;  her  streams 


S5 

have  flowed  in  more  lucid  beauty  ;  her  men  have 
seemed  nobler ;  her  maidens  more  lovely.  Where 
the  foot  of  the  poet  has  been  planted  —  where  his 
glance  has  rested — where  his  dust  reposes  —  there 
is  hallowed  ground. 

His  spirit  wraps  the  dusky  mountain, 
His  memory  sparkles  o'er  the  fountain, 
The  meanest  rill,  the  mightiest  river 
Rolls  mingling  with  his  name  for  ever. 

There  is  much  good  sense  in  the  advice  that 
Goethe  was  accustomed  to  give  to  the  young  poets 
of  his  country,  not  as  a  matter  of  course  to  form 
the  plan  of  writing  a  great  poem,  which  might  be 
neither  suited  to  their  own  genius,  nor  adapted  to 
the  wants  of  their  age,  and  which  would  cause 
them  to  lose  many  golden  moments  of  inspiration, 
that  might  otherwise  have  been  genially  and  pro- 
ductively employed,  but  to  let  their  talent  express 
itself  naturally,  and  be  ready  to  seize  every  poetical 
opportunity  that  might  present  itself.  The  epic 
form  may  be  considered  as  a  thing  gone  by,  not  to 
be  recalled,  like  a  belief  in  witchcraft,  or  the  f;ish- 
ion  of  wearing  armor.  They  who  have  written 
epics  in  our  time,  have  only  thrown  away  their 
labor  and  ingenuity.  Who  has  ever,  except  as  a 
task,  toiled  through  the  dreary  pages  of  Cottle's 


36 

Alfred,  the  Charlemagne  of  Lucien  Bonaparte,  or, 
with  reverence  be  it  spoken,  Barlow's  Columbiad  ? 
A  song  of  Burns,  or  a  sonnet  of  Wordsworth  is 
fairly  worth  an  alcove  of  such  epics. 

So  it  is  with  the  ballad.  It  is  the  rude  expression 
of  the  sentiments  of  a  rude  age,  and  as  such  has  a 
charm  and  value  of  its  own.  Clever  men,  in  a  culti- 
vated age,  amuse  themselves  with  writing  what  they 
call  ballads,  but  they  are  not  native  to  the  soil.  The 
old  trumpet  tone  cannot  be  brought  back.  The 
hues  of  morning  will  not  blend  with  the  light  of  noon. 
They  remind  us  of  the  recent  tournament  at  Eglin- 
toun  castle,  a  plaything  imitation  of  what  was  once 
a  manly  reality  ;  or  of  an  artificial  river  in  a  plea- 
sure-ground, which  is  very  well  in  its  way,  but  is 
not  like  the  mountain  stream,  that  wanders  to  the 
ocean  at  its  own  sweet  will. 

We  frequently  hear  it  said  that  ours  is  not  a 
poetical  age,  still  less  a  poetical  country.  The 
young  poet  thinks  that  he  could  have  done  some- 
thing, if  he  had  been  born  in  another  period,  or 
under  another  sky.  But  this  is,  in  a  great  mea- 
sure, the  effect  of  those  magic  hues  which  invest 
the  distant  both  in  time  and  space.  Were  the  dis- 
tant brought  near,  were  tlie  past  made  present,  we 
should  find  the  same  mingled  elements  of  prose 


37 

and  poetry,  that  are  around  us  at  this  moment. 
The  soft  cloud  which  hes  on  the  distant  mountain's 
side  so  temptingly,  that  we  long  for  wings  to  bathe 
and  revel  in  its  voluptuous  folds,  is  chilling  to  the 
bone,  with  its  drizzling  mist,  the  traveller  who  is 
enveloped  by  it.  We  mistake  the  costume  of  po- 
etry for  poetry  itself,  and  the  picturesque,  which  is 
one  of  its  elements,  for  its  whole  substance.  The 
age  of  chivalry  was  undoubtedly  more  picturesque 
than  ours  ;  whether  it  was  more  poetical,  is  another 
question.  Steel  breast-plates  and  silken  doublets 
make  a  fairer  show  than  broadcloth,  but  the  same 
human  heart  beats  under  both.  "  What  is  nature  ?  " 
said  Bonaparte  to  Bourrienne,  "  the  thing  is  vague 
and  unmeaning.  Men  and  passions  are  the  sub- 
jects to  write  about.  Here  is  something  to  study." 
It  betrays  rather  a  poverty  of  invention  to  have  per- 
petual recourse  to  foreign  names,  distant  epochs, 
and  remote  places,  to  awaken  interest.  There  is 
as  good  poetry  in  Middlesex,  as  in  Italy  or  Cash- 
mere, if  we  only  knew  where  to  look  for  it ;  and  he, 
whose  heart  is  cold  on  the  banks  of  die  Merrimac, 
will  not  find  it  growing  warm  on  those  of  the  Tiber. 
An  opinion  essentially  similar  to  that  which  I 
have  ventured  to  (luestion,  has  been  expressed 
by  a  distinguished  living  poet,  in  his  lines  to  the 
Rainbow  : 


38 

When  science  from  creation's  face, 
Enchantment's  veil  withdraws, 
"What  lovely  visions  yield  their  place 
To  cold  material  laws. 

Presumptuous  as  it  may  seem  to  differ  from  the 
author  of  O'Connor's  Child,  upon  the  principles 
of  his  own  art,  I  make  bold  to  take  issue  with  him 
both  upon  the  general  position  and  the  particular 
illustration.  Surely,  the  rainbow  is  a  more  glori- 
ous vision  to  him  who  comprehends  the  beautiful 
law  by  which  its  rich  scarf  is  flung  upon  the  dark 
skirts  of  the  retiring  storm.  Akenside's  is  the 
better  doctrine  : 

Nor  ever  yet 
The  melting  rainbow's  vermeil-tinctured  hues 
To  me  have  shone  so  pleasing,  as  when  first 
The  hand  of  science  pointed  out  the  path, 
In  which  the  sunbeams,  gleaming  from  the  west. 
Fall  on  the  watery  cloud. 

The  stars  are  the  poetry  of  heaven,  but  do  they 
become  its  prose  to  the  instructed  eye,  which  sees 
in  them,  not  points  of  gold  upon  a  ground  of  blue, 
but  worlds  of  beauty  peopling  the  infinite  depths 
of  space  ?  Indeed,  it  seems  to  me  that,  if  an  unde- 
vout  astronomer  be  mad,  an  unpoetical  astronomer 
is  monstrous.     So  too  of  the  kindred  science  of 


39 


geology.  The  imaginative  charm  of  the  landscape 
does  not  disappear  when  we  survey  it  from  the 
geologist's  point  of  view ;  when  we  know  what 
elemental  forces,  what  mighty  energies  of  wave 
and  fire,  have  reared  the  i)innacled  rock,  have 
smoothed  the  level  plain,  have  rounded  the  gentle 
slopes  of  the  hills  and  torn  open  the  mountain 
gates  for  the  stream  to  pass  through.  The  flower 
is  not  disenchanted  to  the  botanist's  eye,  who  has 
followed  with  his  microscope  the  minute  vessels 
and  capillary  tubes,  by  which  it  draws  from  the 
dark  unsightly  earth  its  beauty  and  its  fragrance. 
To  a  well-constituted  mind,  the  highest  charm  is 
ever  that  of  truth ;  compared  to  this,  all  the  mer- 
etricious graces  which  may  be  borrowed  from  error 
and  delusion  are  but  as  the  varnish  on  the  harlot's 
cheek,  to  the  natural  bloom  of  health  and  sensi- 
bility. 

As  poetry  has  its  scientific  exposition,  so  is 
science  not  without  its  poetical  aspect.  We  may 
draw  from  the  history  of  literature  and  science 
confirmations  of  the  position  which  has  been  kiid 
down.  The  imagination  of  Bacon  was  Shakspc- 
rian  in  its  comprehensiveness  and  richness.  Vns- 
cal,  in  his  moral  and  religious  writings,  soars  into 
the  highest  region  of  poetry.     TIk;  scienliiic  re- 


40 

searches  of  Goethe  are  well  known.  Sir  Humphrey 
Davy,  by  common  consent  of  all  who  knew  him, 
might  have  been  one  of  the  prominent  poets  of 
his  country,  if  he  had  not  chosen  to  become  the 
first  of  its  scientific  discoverers  and  benefactors. 
One  of  the  most  fruitful  and  musical  of  our  own 
poets  is  also  a  highly  distinguished  man  of  science 
in  more  than  one  department.  If  I  may  presume 
to  draw  an  inference  from  a  very  limited  know- 
ledge upon  this  subject,  it  seems  to  me  that  sci- 
ence has  been  a  sufferer  from  the  hard,  cold  and 
dry  manner  in  which  it  has  been  viewedtand  treat- 
ed, and  that  new  value  and  interest  may  be  given 
to  its  researches  and  discoveries  by  that  more 
genial  spirit  in  which  we  find  it  studied  and  inter- 
preted by  such  men  as  Sir  John  Herschel  and  Pro- 
fessor Whewell. 

The  poet  in  our  age  has  no  occasion  to  lament 
his  destiny  or  consider  himself  as  one  born  out 
of  due  season.  It  is  true  that  he  must  give 
up  much  of  what  was  once  a  part  of  the  com- 
mon stock  in  trade  of  the  craft,  because  there  is 
no  longer  any  demand  for  it  in  the  market.  All 
the  commonplaces  of  classical  mythology,  Apollo 
and  the  Muses,  Pegasus,  Parnassus  and  Helicon, 
have  lost  their  chai-m  by  long  familiarity.     The 


41 

present  age  deals  with  them  as  sternly  as  Cole- 
ridge relates  that  his  teacher,  Dr.  Bowyer,  did,  when 
he  met  with  them  in  the  exercises  of  his  boys ; 
"  Muse,  boy,  Muse  —  your  nurse's  daughter,  you 
mean !  Pierian  spring  r  Oh,  ay,  the  cloister 
pump  I  suppose."  The  green  coats  of  the  fairies, 
and  the  tinkling  of  their  silver  bells,  have  also 
passed  away,  never  to  be  recalled.  They  can  no 
longer  endure  the  open  daylight  of  reason.  They 
were  buried  with  the  wand  of  that  mighty  magi- 
cian, who,  like  his  own  Prospero,  could  summon 
shapes  of  beauty  and  power  from  the  reahns  of 
earth,  air  and  sea,  to  do  his  bidding.  Nor  can  he 
have  recourse  to  that  cheap  process  of  personifi- 
cation so  common  in  the  last  century,  by  which 
life  is  attempted  to  be  breathed  into  cold  abstrac- 
tions through  the  help  of  initial  capitals,  and  which 
was  carried  so  far  at  one  period  that  an  enthusiastic 
poet  is  said  to  have  begun  an  ode  with  the  line, 
"  Inoculation,  heavenly  maid,  descend."  The 
compositor  can  no  longer  turn  prose  into  poetry. 
The  life  from  which  the  poet  must  now  draw  his 
materials  is  certainly  less  picturesque,  })crhaps  less 
stimulating,  than  at  former  periods  ;  but  the  great 
fountains  of  poetry  are  left  in  the  mind  ol"  man, 
with  its  thoughts  that  wand(;r   llnoiigli  eternity  ; 


42 

and  in  the  heart  of  man,  that  populous  world  of 
feeling  and  passion. 

We  call  ours  an  extraordinary  age.  If  by  this 
expression  it  is  meant  that  other  ages  have  been 
ordinary  in  comparison  with  ours,  it  is  a  fallacy  ; 
if  it  mean  that  our  own  age  has  its  peculiar 
characteristics  distinguishing  it  from  previous  pe- 
riods, it  is  no  more  than  a  truism.  Each  age 
has  its  distinctive  features  and  expression,  and 
ours  among  the  rest.  Ours  is  a  grave  and  earnest 
period  ;  of  restless  activity  in  every  department  of 
thought  and  inquiry  ;  of  bold  enterprise  ;  of  fervid 
agitation.  It  is  an  age  that  takes  nothing  for 
granted.  All  institutions  and  all  existing  facts 
must  be  ever  ready  to  produce  their  passports  and 
their  title  deeds.  The  force  of  prescription  is  not 
recognised  as  it  once  was.  The  world  has  grown 
too  old  to  be  treated  like  the  child,  who  is  told  to 
open  his  mouth  and  shut  his  eyes,  if  he  would  have 
something  good.  In  legislation,  politics  and  gov- 
ernment, a  fearless  and  irreverend  spirit  of  inno- 
vation is  at  work.  In  these  departments,  the  aim 
of  the  times  is  to  produce  symmetry,  uniformity 
and  consistency  ;  to  correct  what  is  anomalous, 
and  cut  off  what  is  superfluous  ;  and  the  danger 
rather  is,  that  we  shall  carve  too  deeply,  and  sacri- 


43 


fice  the  law  of  natural  growth  to  an  ideal  standard 
of  proportion. 

Nor  does  the  restless  spirit  of  discontent  stop 
here.  A  band  of  reformers,  considerable  from 
tlieir  enthusiasm  and  their  purity  of  character, 
are  questioning  the  fundamental  principles  on 
which  society  is  organized  and  property  distri- 
buted, and  propose  to  unravel  the  whole  web  of 
social  life  and  weave  it  anew.  In  metaphysics, 
tlie  movement  of  oscillation  is  from  materialism  to- 
wards mysticism.  The  deepest  problems  in  man's 
nature  and  destiny  form  the  staple  subject-matter 
of  spiritual  philosophy,  and  are  discussed  always 
boldly  and  sometimes  successfully  ;  though  it  may 
be  objected  that  the  inquirer  not  unfrequently  loses 
himself  in  a  mist  of  words,  and  that  the  stream  of 
thought  is  sometimes  made  turbid,  as  if  on  pur- 
pose to  conceal  its  want  of  depth.  The  fate  of 
Ixion  is  too  often  renewed ;  and  the  lover  of  truth 
finds  that  he  has  embraced  a  cloud  instead  of  a 
goddess. 

In  the  sciences,  there  is  a  constant  effort  to 
simplify,  to  generalize,  to  discern  unity  in  mul- 
ti])licity,  to  extract  the  formula,  to  educe  the  law, 
by  which  discordant  elements  are  harmonized  and 
remote  facts  brought  into  alhnity.     In  literature, 


44 

we  require  depth,  comprehensiveness,  philosophi- 
cal insight  and  the  breath  of  spiritual  life.  The 
writer  of  fiction  must  analyze  motives,  and  lay 
bare  the  secret  springs  of  action  with  metaphysical 
acuteness  and  discrimination.  It  is  not  enough  to 
see  the  movement  of  the  hands  upon  the  dial- 
plate,  we  must  also  watch  the  play  of  the  inner 
machinery,  by  which  that  movement  is  created  and 
transmitted.  The  historian  must  have  his  theory 
of  history  ;  he  must  survey  his  facts  from  his  own 
point  of  view,  and  group  them  according  to  some 
pre-established  harmony  in  his  own  mind.  Criti- 
cism is  more  genial,  more  penetrating,  more  crea- 
tive ;  and  the  spirit  of  modern  research  is  vivifying 
the  dead  bones  of  antiquity  and  extracting  a  new 
and  deep  meaning  from  the  stories  which  charmed 
the  childhood  of  the  world. 

From  none  of  these  influences  can  the  poet  es- 
cape, if  he  would  ;  and  the  less  so,  from  the  fact 
that  his  relations  with  society  are  more  intimate 
than  at  former  periods.  He  is  no  longer  the  mere 
minstrel  singing  to  men,  when  their  work  is  over, 
but  is  himself  an  actor  and  laborer.  Poetry  forms 
less  of  the  embroidery  of  life,  and  more  of  its  web. 
We  have  substituted  the  bookseller  for  the  patron, 
and  a  reading  pubhc  for  a  pension.     Burns  was 


proud  of  his  skill  in  all  rural  occupations.  He 
was  once  engaged  with  a  brother  husbandman  in 
binding  up  the  corn  into  sheaves  after  the  reapers, 
called  in  the  dialect  of  Scotland  "  stooking,"  an 
employment  in  which  he  rarely  found  his  match. 
After  a  hard  strife,  in  which  the  poet  was  equalled, 
his  rival  said  to  him,  "  Robert,  I  'm  not  so  fiir  behind 
you  this  time,  I  'm  thinking."  The  poet  replied, 
while  a  glance  of  triumph  shot  from  his  dark  eye, 
"  John,  you  are  behind  me  in  something  yet,  for  I 
made  a  song  while  I  was  stooking."  I  mention 
this  anecdote  for  the  illustration  which  it  ailbrds. 
The  poet  of  our  times  must  work  and  sing  too. 
Hence  every  movement  in  social  and  moral  re- 
form, every  institution,  every  party  —  temperance, 
anti-slavery,  democracy  —  all  keep  their  poets. 
In  many  of  these,  the  dehcate  essence  of  poetry  is 
quite  sublimated  and  consumed  by  the  hot  flames 
of  zeal.  The  poet  is  so  terribly  in  earnest,  that  he 
is  only  one  part  poet  to  nine  parts  partisan. 

Men  in  our  times  look  to  the  poet  to  helj)  them 
in  their  struggles  and  their  aspirations.  His  clear 
insight,  his  picturesque  fancy,  his  creative  imagina- 
tion are  pressed  into  the  service  of  toiling,  sullcring, 
sorrowing  humanity.  His  themes  are  to  be  drawn 
less  from  the  accidents  of  rank,  place  and  position 


46 


than  from  those  elements  which  are  the  common 
heritage  of  man.  An  admirer  of  Goethe  once 
remarked  to  him,  "  your  great  tendency  is  to  give 
the  real  a  poetical  form  ;  others  endeavor  to  realize 
the  so-called  poetical,  the  ideal,  and  the  result  is 
absurdity."  The  justice  of  this  observation,  so  far 
as  Goethe  is  concerned,  will  be  acknowledged  by 
all  who  are  familiar  with  his  writings.  The  poetry 
of  our  times  must  be,  more  than  ever  before,  the 
poetry  of  real  life,  or  if  an  expression  may  be 
allowed,  somewhat  savoring  of  conceit,  the  poetry 
of  prose.  It  must  be  grave,  earnest,  sincere,  and 
manly.  It  must  rest  upon  the  great  heart  of  hu- 
manity, wiiose  pulsations  must  vibrate  through  it. 
We  exact  more  rigorously  than  at  former  periods, 
dignity  of  sentiment  and  elevation  of  feeling. 
Transparent  beauty  of  diction  and  the  most  care- 
ful choice  of  language  are  seldom  now  employed 
to  embalm  cheap  thoughts,  commonplace  imagery, 
and  trivial  conceptions,  reminding  us  of  straws  and 
insects  preserved  in  amber.  The  essence  of  poetry 
was  once  supposed  to  reside  rather  in  the  process 
or  art,  but  now  in  the  product  or  result.  We 
sacrifice  form  to  substance,  and  are  only  too  care- 
less about  the  garb  of  poetry.  In  the  most  sport- 
ive movements  of  the  muse,  there  is  an  earnest 


47 

expression.  There  is  a  chord  of  rebellion  in  the 
lyre  of  Moore,  and  the  songs  of  Beranger  have 
sent  him  to  prison. 

In  our  own  country  we  have  the  most  complete 
manifestation  of  those  characteristics  which  are 
peculiar  to  the  age,  and  the  absence  of  that  con- 
trast of  light  and  shadow  which  arises  from  fixed 
ditierences  in  social  life.  How  much  poetry  here 
loses  by  that  clear  daylight  in  which  our  history 
begins,  and  the  want  of  those  legendary  tradi- 
tions, drawn  from  the  storehouse  of  a  dim  anti- 
quity, and  made  venerable  by  the  "  awful  hoar  of 
innumerable  ages  "  —  how  much  it  gains  by  those 
heroic  and  exalted  virtues,  in  which  the  founda- 
tions of  our  state  were  laid,  and  by  which  so  much 
of  its  subsequent  history  has  been  illustrated,  and 
which  shed  so  pure  a  light  upon  the  Mayflower, 
the  Pilgrims'  rock,  the  plains  of  Lexington,  and 
the  shades  of  Mount  Vernon  —  is  a  fruitful  subject 
of  inquiry,  at  which  we  can  only  give  a  passing 
glance. 

Looking  at  the  life,  and  the  society  that  arc 
around  us  to-day,  if  there  be  something  discour- 
aging in  the  plain  level  on  which  everything  here 
rests,  and  in  the  absence  of  those  picturescpic  ;iii(l 
melo-dramatic  elements,  which  are    llu;    birlh  ul' 


48 

traditionary  symbols  and  transmitted  institutions, 
there  is,  on  the  other  hand,  a  compensation  in  the 
more  unchecked  development,  which  is  thereby 
given  to  simple  humanity.  In  our  free  air,  all 
human  passions  burn  more  brightly,  and  the  hues 
of  many-colored  life  glow  more  vividly.  Love 
is  more  spontaneous,  ambition  is  bolder,  hope  is 
more  aspiring.  The  blood  is  younger  in  the  veins 
of  time.  There  is  no  occasion  here  for  the  poet 
to  fold  his  hands  in  silent  despair.  All  the  primal 
elements  of  his  art  stand  round  him  like  ripened 
corn  in  the  fields  of  the  world.  Here  is  man,  no- 
where more  energetic,  more  persevering,  more 
brave  ;  here  is  woman,  nowhere  more  lovely,  more 
pure,  more  self-devoting ;  here  are  the  dazzling 
hopes  of  youth  ;  the  evening  shadows  of  age  point- 
ing eastward  to  the  dawn  of  a  new  life  ;  love  that 
emparadises  earth  ;  the  mother  and  her  child  ;  the 
ever  new  mystery  of  birth  ;  the  marriage  benedic- 
tion ;  the  grave  waiting  for  all.  Above  us  are  the 
unwrinkled  heavens  ;  the  sleepless  ocean  murmurs 
around  ;  and  all  the  shows  of  earth  are  at  our  feet. 
There  is  something  fearful  in  the  rapidity  with 
which  the  industrial  development  of  the  country 
goes  on  ;  in  the  magic  speed  with  which  prairie 
grass  is  turned  into  pavements,  and  the  primeval 


49 

forest  is  transformed  into  court-houses,  black- 
smiths' shops,  and  lawyers'  offices.  As  we  travel 
westward,  we  go  back  into  the  vanished  centuries, 
and  in  the  settler,  with  his  axe  before  the  giant 
woods  of  Michigan,  we  find  a  contemporary  of  the 
Greek,  under  the  oaks  of  Dodona.  All  these 
things  —  even  railroads,  canals,  and  steam-ships, 
have,  in  their  relation  to  human  happiness  and 
improvement,  their  poetical  aspect.  The  poet 
w^ho  finds  no  "  thoughts,  that  voluntary  move  har- 
monious numbers,"  suggested  by  the  Thames  Tun- 
nel, or  the  Croton  Aqueduct,  is  but  a  tyro  in  his 
noble  art. 

If  there  be  no  lack  of  themes  and  inspiration, 
there  is  surely  none  of  impulse  and  motive.  No- 
where is  the  poet  called  upon  more  imperatively 
to  speak  out  whatever  there  is  within  him  of 
divine  birth.  We  need  the  charm  and  grace 
which  he  alone  can  tlirow  over  the  rough  places 
of  hfe.  A  nation  skilled  in  the  arts  that  mul- 
tiply physical  comforts  and  conveniences,  but  ni 
which  the  imaginative  faculty  lies  paralyzed  and 
lifeless,  disturbs  us  with  the  sense  of  something 
incomplete  and  imperfect.  It  reminds  us  of  a 
world  without  children.  It  is  a  SI  inker  conunu- 
nity  on  a  gigantic  scale.     In  some   })()ints  we  re- 


50 

cognise  the  superiority  of  Sparta  to  Athens ;  but 
what  to  us  are  the  institutions  of  Lycurgus,  com- 
pared with  the  choruses  of  Sophocles  and  the  frieze 
of  the  Parthenon  ?  As  the  idea  of  a  cathedral 
includes  not  only  the  central  nave,  the  long-drawn 
aisle,  the  high  embowed  roof,  the  massive  buttress, 
but  also,  the  roses  blooming  in  stone,  the  quaint 
corbels,  the  twining  wreaths  of  foliage,  and  the 
stained  glass,  blushing  with  the  blood  of  martyrs 
and  the  glories  of  sunset ;  so  in  the  idea  of  a  state 
are  comprehended,  not  only  armies  and  navies, 
politics  and  government,  the  custom-house  and  the 
post-office,  the  judge  and  the  sheriff,  but  whatever 
sweetens  and  decorates  life,  the  arts  that  repro- 
duce the  beauty  of  stars  and  clouds  and  child- 
hood's cheek  —  poetry,  painting,  sculpture  and 
music. 

The  motives  to  intellectual  action  press  upon 
us  with  peculiar  force  in  our  country,  because 
the  connection  is  here  so  immediate  between 
character  and  happiness,  and  because  there  is  no- 
thing between  us  and  ruin,  but  intelligence  which 
sees  the  right,  and  virtue  which  pursues  it.  There 
are  such  elements  of  hope  and  fear  mingled  in 
the  great  experiment  which  is  here  trying,  the  re- 
sults are  so  momentous  to  humanity,  that  all  the 


51 

voices  of  the  past  and  the  future  seem  to  blend  in 
one  sound  of  warning  and  entreaty,  addressing 
itself  not  only  to  the  general,  but  to  the  indi- 
vidual ear.  By  the  wrecks  of  shattered  states,  by 
the  quenched  hghts  of  promise  that  once  shone 
upon  man,  by  the  long-deferred  hopes  of  hu- 
manity, by  all  that  has  been  done  and  suffered 
in  the  cause  of  liberty,  by  the  martyrs  that  died 
before  the  sight,  by  the  exiles,  whose  hearts  have 
been  crushed  in  dumb  despair,  by  the  memory  of 
our  fathers  and  their  blood  in  our  veins,  —  it  calls 
upon  us,  each  and  all,  to  be  faithful  to  the  trust 
which  God  has  committed  to  our  hands. 

That  fine  natures  should  here  feel  their  energies 
palsied  by  the  cold  touch  of  indifference,  that  they 
should  turn  to  Westminster  Abbey,  or  the  Alps 
or  the  Vatican,  to  quicken  their  flagging  pulses, 
is  of  all  mental  anomalies  the  most  inexplicable. 
The  danger  would  seem  to  be  rather  that  the  spring 
of  a  sensitive  mind  may  be  broken  by  the  weight 
of  obligation  that  rests  upon  it,  and  that  the  stimu- 
lant, by  its  very  excess,  may  become  a  narcotic. 
The  poet  must  not  plead  his  delicacy  of  organiza- 
tion as  an  excuse  for  dwelling  apart  in  trim  gardens 
of  leisure,  and  looking  at  the  world  only  through 
the  loop-holes  of  his  retreat.     Let  him  iling  him- 


52 

self  with  a  gallant  heart,  upon  the  stirring  life,  that 
heaves  and  foams  around  him.  He  must  call 
home  his  imagination  from  those  spots  on  which 
the  light  of  other  days  has  thrown  its  pensive  charm, 
and  be  content  to  dwell  among  his  own  people. 
The  future  and  the  present  must  inspire  him,  and 
not  the  past.  He  must  transfer  to  his  pictures  the 
glow  of  morning,  and  not  the  hues  of  sunset.  He 
must  not  go  to  any  foreign  Pharphar  or  Abana, 
for  the  sweet  influences  which  he  may  find  in  that 
familiar  stream,  on  whose  banks  he  has  played  as 
a  child,  and  mused  as  a  man.  Let  him  dedicate 
his  powers  to  the  best  interests  of  his  country. 
Let  him  sow  the  seeds  of  beauty  along  that  dusty 
road,  where  humanity  toils  and  sweats  in  the  sun. 
Let  him  spurn  the  baseness  which  ministers  food 
to  the  passions,  that  blot  out  in  man's  soul  the 
image  of  God.  Let  not  his  hands  add  one  seduc- 
tive charm  to  the  unzoned  form  of  pleasure,  nor 
twine  the  roses  of  his  genius  around  the  reveller's 
wine-cup.  Let  him  mingle  with  his  verse  those 
gi'ave  and  high  elements  befitting  him,  around 
whom  the  air  of  freedom  blows,  and  upon  whom 
the  lio;ht  of  heaven  shines.  Let  him  teach  those 
stern  virtues  of  self-control  and  self-renunciation, 
of  faith  and  patience,  of  abstinence  and  fortitude  — 


53 

which  constitute  the  foundations  ahke  of  individual 
happiness,  and  of  national  prosperity.  Let  him 
help  to  rear  up  this  great  people  to  the  stature  and 
symmetry  of  a  moral  manhood.  Let  him  look 
abroad  upon  this  young  world  in  hope  and  not  in 
despondency.  Let  him  not  be  repelled  by  the 
coarse  surface  of  material  life.  Let  him  survey  it 
with  the  piercing  insight  of  genius,  and  in  the 
reconciling  spirit  of  love.  Let  him  find  inspiration 
wherever  man  is  found  ;  in  the  sailor  singing  at 
the  windlass  ;  in  the  roaring  flames  of  the  furnace  ; 
in  the  dizzy  spindles  of  the  factory ;  in  the  regular 
beat  of  the  thresher's  flail ;  in  the  smoke  of  the 
steam-ship  ;  in  the  whistle  of  the  locomotive.  Let 
the  mountain  wind  blow  courage  into  him.  Let 
him  pluck  from  the  stars  of  his  own  wintry  sky, 
thoughts,  serene  as  their  own  light,  lofty  as  their 
own  place.  Let  the  purity  of  the  majestic  hea- 
vens flow  into  his  soul.  Let  his  genius  soar  upon 
the  wings  of  faith,  and  charm  with  the  beauty  of 
truth. 


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